


Hunter's Moon

by LordofLies



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Javert Survives, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Gen, M/M, Madeleine Era, Movie/Brick Fusion, Post-Seine, Toulon Era, Werewolf AU, all the eras, covers everything pretty much, moral struggles, werewolf!valjean
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 10:11:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1740872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordofLies/pseuds/LordofLies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a full moon in September, Valjean and Javert witness a horrifying sight in the bagne of Toulon which leaves both of them with scars and the knowledge that there are greater evils in the world than slavery and crime.  Upon his release from prison ten years later, Valjean is bitten by the very thing that has haunted his most terrible nightmares, and must reconcile both his past and his new, animal nature with his desire to be a good and honest man.  Javert, now aware of the existence of the supernatural and determined to protect humanity from the threat which it poses, complicates everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Valjean Witnesses an Abomination and Dwells on the Implications of an Enemy's Fear

**Author's Note:**

> After reading the brick and seeing just how many times Valjean is compared to a wolf, I just had to write a werewolf au (I'm shocked no one has written one yet). France has a pretty solid history of werewolf superstition and persecution too, which was a bonus. Fic will probably be about 20-30k words long by its completion.

Toulon, 1805

Valjean never paid much attention to the new arrivals in the prison. He never paid much attention to anything, truth be told, unless it concerned himself.

He could not remember the man’s name, where he was from, or even why he’d been condemned to the _bagne_ , except perhaps that it had involved stolen livestock or something of the like.

What he did remember was the furtive way the man had looked all around him in the week and a half he’d been at Toulon. A small, wiry, unremarkable man; he was always glancing over his shoulder. There had been a look of constant terror in his eyes that was very different from the usual despairing horror that the convict experienced at the beginning of his stay. Valjean remembered that he kept apologizing to his chain-mates for no discernable reason, which irritated them to the point where his chain-partner, Alphonse, had struck him in the face to silence him.

He’d stopped apologizing after that, but the look in his eyes had become even more desperate. At night he would lie awake and stare up at the ceiling or out the window, and if the night was clear he would sometimes utter a cry so full of horror that it made Valjean shudder.

He’d thought the man a lunatic. Two days before the event which Valjean referred to only as “that night,” he’d thrown himself at the feet of one of the guards and begged to be killed. The guard had laughed and kicked the poor wretch in the stomach, barking at him to get moving.

After that night, Valjean wondered if the guard had wished he’d heeded the man’s request. Or perhaps not. Perhaps that guard had not been afforded the luxury of regret. Valjean did not know.

Being born a peasant and growing up in the rural countryside, Valjean was not an unsuperstitious man, but he’d never paid much heed to old wives tales when the pressing dangers of starvation and exposure were so much more present realities. Before his arrest he’d never had the luxury of letting his imagination dwell on old stories and rumors, and once he’d been imprisoned he’d stopped caring about nearly everything. He knew the tales, though he’d never really believed them.

It was a cloudless night in September and the chill of winter was beginning to creep into his bones. The new prisoner had been trembling all day, and when night came and the convicts were returned to the communal hall with the long wooden benches that served as their beds, Valjean took his place and fell right to sleep, undisturbed by the chill of the iron around his ankle or the press of unwashed bodies around him. It was Toulon, and sleep had to be snatched, like a morsel of bread, whenever it could.

He was woken in a matter of hours by a scream that penetrated into the very marrow of his bones. He bolted upright, squinting in the dark to determine the origin of the terrible shrieking. The room was dark, but moonlight almost as bright as day streamed through the high, barred windows of the hall, and in the mixed light Valjean could see a commotion going on at the other end of his bench. A man twisted and writhed on the planks, shrieking in unbridled agony. His chain-mates had distanced themselves as far from him as they could, but the length of chain between them was only a meter long. Guards entered the room, shouting threats and inquiries.

One of them approached the screaming man, club raised, but as he brought it down to strike him, an arm shot up, grabbed his weapon, and in a single terrifying moment crushed it into splinters.

The guard stepped back in confusion. Convicts all over the room were sitting up and watching the scene unfold with mounting horror. The man’s screaming had transformed into a guttural panting and groaning. He clawed at his clothing and his skin. Chains rattled. Valjean could see splashes of red glimmering in the monochromatic light.

A long, lugubrious howl rose up from the man, like the surge of the ocean and just as cold. Valjean’s skin tightened and the hair on his arms and neck prickled and stood up. With every passing moment, the sounds that the convict was making were becoming less like those of a man and more like those of a beast. He seemed larger than before, his hair thicker and darker, and his face uglier and dog-like.

And then he was not the only one screaming.

All this took place in a matter of moments. The whole room was frozen in shock and horror, unable to comprehend what it was they were witnessing—stupid in their disbelief and useless in their stupor. Perhaps if someone had realized sooner what was taking place, some of the carnage that was about to occur could have been averted. But it is not often that one witnesses the birth of a monster.

The man’s chain-mates never stood a chance. The one to his right had his throat torn out before the transformation was even complete—a terrible sight: a man with the head of a dog, human eyes, and a long pink muzzle bristling with sharp yellow teeth. The one to the right tried desperately to dislocate his ankle and escape from the chain, but in vain. The last thing the poor man saw was a pair of seething yellow eyes and the gaping red maw of a monstrous black wolf.

The convicts screamed and cried, desperate to escape and unable to do so—trapped mice squealing and scrambling over one another beneath the shadow of the cat. All those near the man-turned-beast were ripped to bloody shreds as the monster set upon them, jaws crunching through muscle and bone like shears through wool, swallowing down chunks of flesh as large as Valjean’s head.

Guards rushed into the room, rifles cocked, and began to fire at the beast. It howled in pain, but shook the bullets off like drops of water. It lunged forward at its attackers—all rippling muscle and night-black fur, blood and saliva hanging from its jaws in long, slippery ropes. It leapt onto one of the guards and snapped his neck with a single bite. The guards panicked and scattered as the monster stalked after them, its yellow eyes shining evilly, like some terrible vision of the devil himself.

All but two of the convicts attached to the monster’s chain, which still held fast around its ankle, were dead. It dragged them around behind it like sacks of grain, but the chain itself was still anchored to the floor and so the beast’s ability to roam was restricted enough for those who were not already dead to stay far enough away from it. The guards fired another round of bullets from it, this time from a safe distance, but this effort was no more effective than the last.

The beast paced and slavered, growling dangerously at the prey that was managing to keep away from it. It strained at its bonds, snapping horribly. The chains surely wouldn’t hold it for long. One of the guards closest to it was young, having only been at Toulon a year or so now. Valjean tried to remember his name.

Javert. His name was Javert.

He trembled and fumbled to reload his gun, never taking his eyes off the beast. It was watching him in return, pacing back and forth. Javert, despite his youth, was hard and unrelenting. He never showed fear, even in tense situations, and always had the air of a predator about him when he was around the convicts. Valjean had never seen him look so frightened.

He took aim at the monster and fired, but instead of having the desired effect of killing it, the bullets seemed to only enrage it. With a single powerful leap, it lunged at Javert, and the chain binding it to the ground snapped. If another shot had not come from the side and knocked it down, away from Javert, the boy would surely have died. The creature lay upon the ground, twitching and gurgling, blood bubbling up from its mouth. After a few moments, it lay still, its yellow eyes open and filled with hate.

The man who had shot it, one of the senior officers of the _bagne_ , approached Javert, and laid a hand on the young man’s trembling shoulder. Immediately, Javert stiffened and his face become stony. The senior officer shouted orders to the remaining guards, ordering them to gather up anyone who was wounded and take them to the infirmary, and to dispose of the corpses and…remains.

Valjean was filled with horror and a terrifying sense of dislocation as he beheld the motionless black monster, its fur matted and slick with gore. He’d known what it was before the word started circulating through the room. His gaze trailed over the string of corpses hanging off the chain; men without heads and limbs. One’s chest had been torn open. Glazed eyes stared sightlessly up at the ceiling, ribs stuck out like jagged shards of porcelain, and the coils of his intestines glistened wetly in the moonlight. The metallic stench of blood mixed with the odors of sweat and refuse that already filled the hall. The acrid stench of fear permeated every pore.

Hardly even aware of what he was doing, Valjean leaned over the side of the bench and emptied the contents of his stomach onto the floor.

_Loup-garou_. The word whispered in his ear. _Werewolf_. He spat out a mouthful of sour saliva and looked up. His eyes met Javert’s and the young guard whipped his head away. But it was too late. Valjean had already seen. That fear was still there. Javert had been shaken to his foundation, and despite his horror and wretchedness Valjean felt a sick sense of pleasure that the irreproachable Javert had been knocked down to the same level as the rest of them—just mindless prey animals squealing in the dark. He was not made of wood after all.

There was no sleep for Valjean, nor for anyone else who had been there that night and seen the devil himself rear up in what was already Hell on earth. Some of the convicts trembled and wept with terror and relief that they had not suffered the fate of the dead, while others followed Valjean’s example. The sound of retching filled the room.

Two convicts and one guard had been wounded by the monster, but had survived. They were carried off to the infirmary. Those convicts who were able to shake off their shock and horror were set to work cleaning up the carnage, and it was a long few hours before anyone was able to even contemplate going back to sleep.

Valjean laid awake on his plank, looking out the window at the silvery moon which hung like a five-franc piece in the dark blanket of the night. He understood nothing. He knew only that he’d seen something horrible—something which should not be, but is. It seemed to Valjean that there were many things in the world which should not be, but are, and that just when he thought he’d seen the worst the world had to offer, new depths of suffering and horror were revealed to him which had hitherto been unimaginable. He’d witnessed the birth of a monster that night, and he comprehended nothing.

Had it been the devil, or a man? He tried to recollect the man before he’d become a beast. It did not seem possible that they were one in the same. How did one become such a thing? He tried to remember. The _loup-garou_ was a demon clothed in human flesh, who assumed the form of a wolf on the night of a full moon, seeking humans and animals to devour, and turning those whom it had bitten into creatures such as itself.

With a sudden flash of clarity, Valjean sat bolt upright. The guard standing nearby turned to look at him, startled by his sudden movement. It was Javert.

“The men who were wounded,” Valjean whispered roughly.

“They were taken to the infirmary.”

Valjean shook his head. “They’ll become like him. They’ll—“ he stopped, the words stuck in his throat.

“What?” Javert snapped.

“Don’t you know the stories? Whomever the _loup-garou_ bites, it makes like itself. On the next full moon, there will be three more.” Valjean could have sworn that whatever color remained in Javert’s pale face drained out of it in that moment.

“Of course I don’t know the stories. What reason would I have to pay attention to nonsense like that?” Javert bit his tongue, but the words were already out of his mouth before he had a chance to stop them. Valjean blinked at him morosely, and Javert turned aside. It was clear to both of them that what once might have been old legends and folk tales was clearly far more deeply rooted in reality than they had believed.

Javert said nothing more after that, and neither did Valjean. He tossed and turned all night. He wasn’t even sure what he was more afraid of—the possibility of a repetition of the night’s events, or the fact that they had occurred at all. He’d witnessed something truly hellish that night, something that would remain with him for the rest of his days, that would haunt his steps, would make him look over his shoulder in the dark, wondering what inconceivable evil might be lurking there beyond the edges of his perception and his understanding of reality. He wasn’t sure this _was_ reality. Maybe it was just a horrible dream.

Maybe the past nine years had all just been a dream, and when he woke he would be home with his sister and his nieces and nephews.

Valjean struggled to remember what their faces looked like. The life he’d led before Toulon was as much a dream as the present. Perhaps nothing at all was real.

He fell asleep to the thought that, if God was not dead, He was certainly cruel.

 

Two days later, the three survivors of the monster’s attack were dead—the convicts and the guard. The superior officer who had shot and killed the beast (how, Valjean knew not) had ordered the two convicts to be executed officially for laying hands upon a guard. The guard had supposedly died of his wounds, though Valjean suspected otherwise. They did not want anyone to know what had taken place, and Valjean did not blame them. He did not want to think about that night, about that horrible black shape and those baleful yellow eyes.

The execution was public, as were all executions at the _bagne_. Valjean did not care to watch those two pitiful souls depart this world, but he felt a secret relief that someone with power had realized that if left alive, those survivors would have become monsters themselves. He did not keep his eyes on the two men about to be executed, and who presented a sight truly worthy of pity, trembling as they were with fear and pain, their eyes covered, and their many wounds dressed and bandaged beneath their rags. One of them could barely stand, and sank to his knees beside his companion. No, Valjean could not bring himself to watch this. He chose to watch the guard Javert instead, whose lips were pursed in a thin line and forehead was creased with consternation. One of the other guards nudged him with his elbow.

“Why the grim face, Javert? They are just convicts.” Javert’s lips drew back in a sneer.

“I suppose I find no joy in watching men lose their lives.”

The other guard shrugged. “They are hardly men, but I suppose I was not there that night. I heard the riot was a terrible one.” Javert said nothing more, but Valjean continued to watch him. The thought which entered his head—that he and Javert shared this sentiment at least—came unbidden and could not be expunged, despite its irrelevancy. What did it matter if Javert did not get off on watching innocent men die? He was still a guard, still an enforcer of punishment. He still held the baton which had, on many occasions, stained Valjean’s body black and blue with beatings.

He did not want to see any glimpse of humanity in the face of his tormentor. They were as dissimilar as night and day. Javert was a well-oiled machine, a mechanism which served only to execute the will of those who held him in their loyalty, a human-guillotine. How fitting a title that was for him! Was the guillotine not invented to be a more efficient and painless method of execution? More humane? And yet what horror it inspired in the execution of its duty. The guillotine was more a symbol of terror and merciless judgment than of human compassion. There was no trace of humanity in it, nor was there a trace of it in Javert.

And yet, Valjean remembered the fear in Javert’s eyes. The beast had come so close to him he must have felt its foul breath upon his skin. Valjean wondered if Javert could see himself in the place of those convicts, trembling beneath the hollow gaze of the rifle, a fate he surely would have shared if that bullet had come only a moment too late. The men were innocent, but their deaths were necessary for the good of all. Valjean wondered if Javert too, had thought that very thought.

The shots echoed out, and it was over. Routine resumed. Valjean saw Javert only at a distance, and gradually forgot about the young guard and his brush with death.

He did not forget about that night, nor about that hideous black shape—all void and wrath and heat and fury. Those jaws snapped and spilled guts in his nightmares for years afterwards. Time dimmed his memory, but not the impression of fear that night had left on him. He’d been marked by it as surely as he had been marked by the iron before his humiliating march to the _bagne_. Unlike the brand on his shoulder, this mark could not be seen, but Valjean could feel the rough edges of its scar upon his soul.


	2. In Which Valjean Receives a Blessing and a Curse

Southern France, 1915

Jean Valjean had been released from Toulon only two days ago, but in those two days he had found himself turned aside from work by all but the first man whom he had offered to help—and who had paid him half as much as the other workers.

A terrible rancor seethed in his heart, which grown hard and shriveled for want of love like a flower for want of water. Just finding food and shelter was a struggle of insurmountable proportions. His only hope was that if he kept going, he would eventually find somewhere that would take him in. What a wicked world it was, to make even freedom a prison! Nineteen years waiting to be free and now he would starve in a matter of weeks.

Bitter, despondent, and too tired to continue, Valjean took refuge beneath the branches of a tree in the otherwise bare hills that he had been traversing. He’d passed through two towns that day but none would shelter him, and now it was night and the moon was out. He would go no further until daybreak.

Between the branches of the tree, the moon gleamed like a silver coin, and with a shiver Valjean remembered the last time the moon had appeared to him as such. It had been nearly a decade, but he had not forgotten that night. Not the horror, nor the blood.

Uneasily, Valjean turned on his side and let himself drift off to sleep.

He was awoken sometime later by the sound of footfalls and snapping twigs. Startled, Valjean sat upright. The moonlight illuminated the landscape, but it was a half-light and the shapes it revealed were indistinct and surreal. He saw a shadow flit in the corner of his vision. Instinctively, he grasped his heavy wooden cudgel, glaring about in an effort discover what had moved out in the darkness. He did not call out. He did not think it was human.

From somewhere behind him came the sound of heavy breathing. Valjean bolted to his feet and whipped around.

“Oh,” he said. It was a desperate sound—hardly more than an expulsion of air. His mouth went dry and his stomach dropped. Looming before him was a massive beast, its lips drawn back in a quiet snarl which revealed long, glistening teeth. Evil yellow eyes bored into him from the black shape of its face.

It was a wolf, but Valjean knew that it was not.

They moved at the same time. The beast lunged for him, mouth gaping, and Valjean struck out with his iron-capped cudgel as hard as he could. He hit the wolf in the mouth and knocked it to the side with a howl of pain. Unable to even process what was happening, he let instinct take over. Valjean bolted like a hare from a hound. The beast pursued.

It was not a long chase. Claws raked down his back and Valjean roared with pain as those needle-sharp fangs sunk into his shoulder. He whirled his staff around and struck the beast in the side of the head, giving him enough leverage to tear free of it. He rolled across the ground and whirled to his feet again, staff brandished before him, breath coming in and out in thunderous bursts. The beast swayed on its feet, shaking its head furiously. It snarled and stalked toward him, but this time it was Valjean who made the first move. Blind with fury—and monstrously strong as his instinct for survival succeeded all other reason—he brought the heavy wooden staff down on the monster’s head, and was sure that he heard a crack. The wolf shrieked with pain, tearing at the earth with its claws. It glared up at Valjean with eyes so full of rage and hatred that it made that man—whose heart understood those sentiments all too well—shudder with horror.

With one last parting growl, the beast turned away and rushed off back into the woods. Valjean dared not move, nor relax from his position with his weapon brandished and muscles tensed to fight, for another fifteen minutes or so. When the beast did not return, Valjean let the cudgel drop and sank to the ground. His dug his fingers into the earth; a searing pain was seeping from his shoulder into the rest of his body. He convulsed, tearing at the wet grass as tremors wracked his strong body and a feverish heat swept over him. He was burning up with heat and his chest was tight. He gasped for want of air, dizzy and unable to draw enough oxygen into his lungs. Frantic, he pulled off his ruined shirt, cast it aside, and threw himself upon the ground, pressing his searing forehead into the cool grass. He cried out in pain. Tears of agony and fury sprang from his eyes.

God was cruel indeed, he thought, in those lucid moments between the bursts of fever and madness. There was no end, it seemed, to the depth of his suffering or his wretchedness. He wept with despair, and it seemed to him as though the last dregs of his humanity were soaking away into the dirt. He was truly a damned creature now. The last light of salvation guttered and died like the stub of a candle.

In a month’s time he would become that man whom he’d known for only a week ten years ago—terrified, haunted, tortured. He would become that monster; he would tear people apart. And if he survived, he would do it all over again a month after that, and every month thereafter until someone put a bullet in his heart.

Eventually, the heat blotted out all coherent thought, and Jean Valjean’s sight went dark. When next he opened his eyes, it was daylight and his fever and tremors had passed. He felt his shoulder, and was startled to realize that there was no wound—just crusts of dried blood and a strange tingling tenderness which was not restricted only to his shoulder.

Foggy with the dregs of fever, and still not sure that what he was experiencing was even real, Valjean gathered up his belongings and staggered off. He came across a stream, in which he washed his torn shirt—the only one he had, the only thing he had to cover up his brand. He hung the shirt over his shoulder to let it dry as he walked.

After walking half the day, he came to the town of Digne, where he was turned out of every inn and hostelry. Ravenous with hunger, but feeling crushed beneath the weight of his exhaustion, he laid himself down on a bench outside the church, and tried to sleep. Before he could surrender to unconsciousness, however, a man approached him and invited him into his home.

Half-disbelieving, Valjean staggered after the man, the bishop of the town, where he was treated to a bowl of warm cabbage soup and a slab of bread—the first meal he’d eaten in nearly two days—and afterwards a bed to sleep in. Valjean tossed and turned in that bed, his mind in a fever. He looked out the window at the waning moon, and felt a shiver. How long would it be before that ghostly light called out the monster that now lurked inside him? A matter of weeks. He clutched the sides of his head and pressed the heel of his palms against his temples, as though he could expel these dark thoughts and strange sensations like whey from curds.

It was too much. His body felt like it was not his own—candles were too bright, whispers too loud, and the smell of humanity overwhelmed him with disgust and an even more horrifying hunger. He could see in the darkness as clear as if it were day, hear the scuttling of mice in the grass outside, and smell the unwashed flesh of every passerby two streets away. There was a fire in his blood that would not die.

He felt a desperate yearning in the pit of stomach; an urge to race across open fields, feel the earth beneath his feet and the wind in his hair, to stalk prey in the dark and sink his teeth into warm flesh, feel blood rush down his throat—

Valjean groaned and wrapped his arms around his belly, which rumbled despite the good meal he had eaten. He was hungry and tired and furious, and while this man had been kind enough to take him in, Valjean knew that he was unique, and that few others would take such pity on an ex-convict like himself. If the bishop knew that he had been bitten by a _loup-garou_ … well, Valjean was certain in this merciful man’s hospitality had its limits. It was the right of the holy to strike down the wicked, wasn’t it?

All of the sudden, he remembered the silver that the bishop’s servant had set the table with. Valjean hadn’t bothered to use it, he’d simple raised the wooden bowl to his lips and drunk from it. But he had seen where it was kept. It would not be difficult…

A few minutes later, Valjean stood at the cabinet where the silverware was stored. He glanced at the sleeping bishop, before reaching in to grasp the silver. The moment his fingers touched that first spoon, a searing pain shot up his arm from the point of contact. He bit down on his tongue to keep from crying out, and tasted copper. His fingers were red and tender where they had touched the silver, as though it had burned him. Valjean did not know why this was, but guessed it had to do with his new condition.

This silver belong to a holy man, and Valjean was now surely a damned one—if he could even call himself a man at all now. He carefully covered his hand with a scrap of cloth and moved the silver into his knapsack, before making his escape out the window of the room he had been offered.

 

It did not take long for the gendarmes to track him down and drag him back to the bishop’s home. Bloody, beaten, and struggling to fight the swelling desire to rip the heads from those blue-clad bodies, he hung his head in shame and fury and awaited judgment. When he heard the bishop confirm his lie—that the silver had been a gift—he could not believe it. He looked up at the bishop as the gendarmes departed, as if seeing the man for the first time. He seemed radiant—too pure to belong in this world; a blinding light in contrast to the void of darkness and depravity which Valjean knew lived within his own soul. Impossibly, the candle he had thought extinguished, flared to life once more.

“You forgot, I gave these also. Would you leave the best behind?” the bishop said kindly, holding out the candlesticks for Valjean to take. For a moment, Valjean could only stare. The bishop was offering him a gift—one that Valjean knew he must accept, no matter how it pained him. With trembling hands he reached out for the candlesticks, and grasped them tightly.

Immediately, it was if he held red-hot irons instead, and tears of pain leaked from his eyes as he struggled to remain silent. The bishop’s serene and benevolent expression was transformed into one of surprise and concern. Gently, he touched Valjean’s wrists, lowering his hands to the floor so that he could release the candlesticks. When Valjean’s fingers were unwrapped from them, the skin was blistered and burned. Valjean cast his gaze down in shame.

“I am unworthy of this gift you have given me,” he whispered. “I am not what you think I am. I am a monster, and God has abandoned me.”

“Rise, my son,” the bishop said, and Valjean looked up in shock, for the bishop was as placid and gentle as ever. “You are no less of a man than I, for we are equal in the eyes of God. He does not abandon any man, it is only we who may abandon Him. So long as you keep your promise to become an honest man, your nature makes no difference. It is only what exists in our hearts, and the actions that we take, that determines whether you are a good man.”

Valjean’s eyes filled with tears. He let out a pitiful sob. As the bishop left him to make his decision, Valjean knew that he stood at a crossroads. He must either rise above his past as a convict, and his new nature as beast of the night, or fall to the lowest point a living creature could, and become like the slavering beast he’d seen on that night ten years ago—a creature of pure hatred that would tear men apart and cannibalize their remains.

He shuddered. Such a prospect horrified him even more than the thought of returning to Toulon—even more than the thought of his own death. No. He could not bear the thought that those terrible, hate-filled eyes that he had stared into on the night he was bitten could be a reflection of his own. He would take this gentle, pious man’s gift, and he would allow it to transfigure him. He would become the best of men, lest he become the worst of animals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, things begin to pick up here at least! I'm much more pleased with this chapter than the last one. Next up, Montreuil-sur-Mer!


End file.
